


Bitter Sweet

by wanderlustlover



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-18
Updated: 2009-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The true trial of a wound left unhealing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Kusheil fic for the icon meme
> 
> With apologies to Mrs. Carey who requests that no one write fandom of her characters, I couldn't help myself when someone requested it off of an icon I use.

  


for [](http://gypsytemptress.livejournal.com/profile)[**gypsytemptress**](http://gypsytemptress.livejournal.com/)

Phedre undressed slowly and silently. The codes of her training, even when not focused on, like the marque on her back, was a part of her being as permanent and manifest in whom she was and always would be. The clothes were the softest of silks and the deepest of crimson, but she gave them little heed as they created the image of a river of blood on the floor of her bedroom. She simply stepped out and walked to the window of her bedroom letting the cold nip at her flesh.

The gown having freed her body revealed small-scabbed cuts and bruises along her sides, legs, and stomach. They brought her no notice except when a movement of her body would stress a location with and reflect with first a sting, and then a wave of luxurious bliss. There were after all many lagniappes to being an anguisette, which did not end when her night rendezvous' did.

Her fingers tips touched the windowpane where they longed to touch the man her eyes fell upon. Joscelin Verruil; the Casseline brother who broke all his vows, and not to mention his heart, in the service of her protection. He kneeled before Richeline's altar to Elua, his head bowed and arms crossed, and he'd been there for many hours now.

The golden glints of the braid hanging down his back attracted her attention, but his stillness couldn't let her be distracted long. The wounds of her body mattered nothing to the wounds his disappointment and disapproval did to her, except that her skin would heal faster than any emotional wound, which could take eons if indeed it did heal completely. It was not as if the losses of her adroit Anafiel and elegant Alcuin, or even the betrayal of the bewitching Melisande, had faded even now.

And perhaps that was what made this both heaven and hell all wrapped delicately into one.

Shaking her head ruefully, Phedre tried to move from the window and the man she could not help but love, but found the act impossible. After all, love and heart break were their own endless wound she had found she could not heal and she trembled before that window, her legs threatening to cave against the raw pleasure, as she stared at him through the light gray rain as it fell.


End file.
